Of his literary character I have spoken largely in the narrative of his life, but there are yet one or two remarks which must be made to do it justice.  In that way of writing in which he excelled, it seems to me that he united, in a pre-eminent degree, those qualities which enabled him to interest the largest number of readers.  He wrote not for the fastidious, the over-refined, the morbidly delicate; for these find in his genius something too robust for their liking—­something by which their sensibilities are too rudely shaken; but he wrote for mankind at large—­for men and women in the ordinary healthful state of feeling—­and in their admiration he found his reward.  It is for this class that public libraries are obliged to provide themselves with an extraordinary number of copies of his works:  the number in the Mercantile Library in this city, I am told, is forty.  Hence it is, that he has earned a fame, wider, I think, than any author of modern times—­wider, certainly, than any author, of any age, ever enjoyed in his lifetime.  All his excellences are translatable—­they pass readily into languages the least allied in their genius to that in which he wrote, and in them he touches the heart and kindles the imagination with the same power as in the original English.

Cooper was not wholly without humor; it is sometimes found lurking in the dialogue of Harvey Birch, and of Leatherstocking but it forms no considerable element in his works; and if it did, it would have stood in the way of his universal popularity; since of all qualities, it is the most difficult to transfuse into a foreign language.  Nor did the effect he produced upon the reader depend on any grace of style which would escape a translator of ordinary skill.  With his style, it is true, he took great pains, and in his earlier works, I am told, sometimes altered the proofs sent from the printer so largely that they might be said to be written over Yet he attained no special felicity, variety, or compass of expression.  His style, however, answered his purpose; it has defects, but it is manly and clear, and stamps on the mind of the reader the impression he desired to convey.  I am not sure that some of the very defects of Cooper’s novels do not add, by a certain force of contrast, to their power over the mind.  He is long in getting at the interest of his narrative.  The progress of the plot, at first, is like that of one of his own vessels of war, slowly, heavily, and even awkwardly working out of a harbor.  We are impatient and weary, but when the vessel is once in the open sea, and feels the free breath of heaven in her full sheets, our delight and admiration is all the greater at the grace, the majesty, and power with which she divides and bears down the waves, and pursues her course, at will, over the great waste of waters.